It's the frustration that forces savvy fliers to drive to a distant airport or take connecting flights just to land a cheaper fare. Some airports are significantly more expensive than others.

Cincinnati travelers pay a heavy premium: It's most expensive among the 75 largest U.S. airports. Passengers there paid an average 22.2 cents per mile traveled in the fourth quarter of last year. Cheapest per mile among the 75 busiest: San Juan, Puerto Rico, at an average of 10.7 cents, according to Transportation Department data compiled by consulting firm Oliver Wyman's PlaneStats.com.

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Cincinnati is the most expensive among the 75 largest U.S. airports.
Getty Images/iStockphoto

What you pay for a trip is often determined by what type of plane you're on and the people you're flying with. Airports that serve comparatively wealthy communities typically have higher average fares, academic research shows. The same holds for airports that serve lots of business travelers—they pay more, driving up the price for everyone in the market. Travelers at airports that serve a lot of budget-conscious vacationers typically rank low in average fares.

Airlines "are the world's best price discriminators," said Jan Brueckner, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine, specializing in the airline industry.

He notes U.S. travelers in general pay more to fly to Europe than Europeans pay to fly to the U.S. because a stronger economy on the U.S. side pushes fares higher for trips that originate in the States.

Longtime airline consultant Dan Kasper of Compass Lexecon in Boston likens it to neighborhood grocery stores. "If I go grocery shopping in a wealthy community, chances are there will be higher prices than in a more midrange community, and the store will probably be stocked with higher-priced items," said Mr. Kasper.

In addition, busy airports with lots of flights to other big airports typically have lower fares, Dr. Brueckner says. More traffic means competition and often bigger airplanes, which are less expensive for airlines to operate per passenger. Airplanes with relatively high per-passenger operating costs, such as older, less fuel-efficient 50-seat regional jets, often end up with higher fares.

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Dave Whamond

That's one factor at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International, where 83% of the flights are on regional jets, according to the Regional Airline Association.

Cincinnati used to be a major Delta Air Lines hub, but Delta has downsized considerably, dropping from more than 600 flights a day several years ago to fewer than 110 a day now.

Delta still carries 75% of all of Cincinnati's passengers, giving it strong pricing power, said Candace McGraw, chief executive officer at the airport, which is located in Hebron, Ky. She notes airport costs, like landing fees and terminal rents, are low at Cincinnati and aren't driving up prices.

The airport, which doesn't have flights from big low-fare airlines like Southwest and JetBlue, believes attracting more competition will help bring down fares. A year ago ultracheap Frontier Airlines started flying to Cincinnati from Denver, and has added flights to Trenton, N.J., and, beginning Sept. 8, Washington's Dulles International Airport. Allegiant Air flies a couple of times a week to destinations in Florida. That limited competition helped reduce average prices 2.5% last year, but not enough to knock Cincinnati out of the top spot in DOT rankings among large airports.

"It's going to take us a bit to fall down in the rankings," said Ms. McGraw, whose airport also topped the list last year.

What It Costs to Fly at the 75 Busiest U.S. Airports

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International is the most expensive among the 75 largest U.S. airports. Below, a look at them, based on average cost per mile traveled.

Unlike other airports, Cincinnati doesn't offer incentives to airlines for new service because it's prohibited by its current agreement with existing carriers, which expires at the end of 2015. Many airports offer to advertise new flights for airlines to drum up business, waive rent and landing fees for an initial period and even subsidize losses just to boost competition and drive down fares.

A large number of major companies dot the area—Procter & Gamble and Kroger, for example. That makes Cincinnati a strong draw for business travelers who tend to fly on higher-priced tickets because they book closer to departure, want the flexibility of unrestricted full-price fares and sometimes are willing to pay for first or business class.

Delta says Cincinnati is still a hub and local passengers pay for better service, from more flights to a premium airport lounge. "Hubs typically can command added value by offering more nonstop service, frequencies and destinations as well as upgraded airport and onboard amenities," Delta spokesman Anthony Black said.

Nationwide, the DOT says average fares were up 1.8% in the fourth quarter. But some big airports showed far bigger price hikes. In Atlanta, the average fare jumped 6%, Miami was up 7% and New York-La Guardia jumped 9% over the same period of 2012. Honolulu and Maui, Hawaii, had the biggest jumps in average fare with prices up more than 11% each. Memphis, Tenn., where Delta ended its hub operation, opening up the market to new competition, saw prices fall.

United Airlines had five of its big hubs in the top 10 airports for average fare in the fourth quarter among the 75 largest airports. United says there's lots of competition at its hubs, but prices are higher because each has a high mix of business travelers. "It's more a function of people buying long-haul tickets, people buying premium-cabin tickets and people buying at the last minute," United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said.

Washington Dulles, for example, has a large concentration of government contractors and technology firms, he noted. "It's not that fares are higher but the mix of people buying them is different," he said.

Small airports pay a high price, too. Airlines cut back flights during the recession and since then have been reluctant to boost service, taking higher prices instead of adding capacity as demand builds for seats. Birmingham, Ala., has seen traffic fall and prices rise, for example.

Aviation consultant Michael Boyd, who once worked in airline pricing, says smaller communities have struggled with higher fares largely because of the 50-seat regional jet. Airlines typically leave few seats available at their lowest prices on a 50-seat plane. They quickly sell and travelers are left with higher prices.

"There just aren't any low-fare seats, and a lot of it is because of small jets," Mr. Boyd said.

When comparing fares per-mile, the length of trips can impact averages. Airports on the coasts with lots of long trips tend to show lower per-mile costs than airports in the middle of the country with shorter flights.

ENLARGE

San Juan, Puerto Rico has the cheapest airport of 75 U.S. facilities surveyed.
Getty Images/iStockphoto

Last minute booking does not seem to be the issue. I just attempted to book O'Hare to Cincinnati for an overnight trip eight weeks from now and the cost was $823 round trip. This is about 310 mile each way. That is ridiculous pricing.

This is an economic development issue that cities like Cincy have to deal with. It's not appealing for people to come live, start a business, or be a tourist in a city with expensive and poor-quality air service.

Whatever Delta says, their 50-seat RJs are miserable tin cans flown by inexperienced and fatigued pilots making $28K a year with camped cabins, lousy first class service (if any), and more-frequent cancellations.

By the way, fares in Cincy are so high that it's viable for a semi-private company to fly 19-seaters from Morristown to CVG to service the business traveler there.

Not much new. The hub and spoke system creates near monopolies (and little competition) at some airports and drives up prices. it is cheaper for me to drive 6 hours to the nearest large airport and stay overnight before the flight than it is to fly from the local airport.

Shocked Minneapolis is not on this list.. well these is really no list I guess. Delta Hub that costs any business traveler $1000 or more to any east or west coast business center. Insane. We need some competition here in Minny!

Airlines do compare their cost per seat mile and their revenue per seat mile in managing their very small operating margins.

I agree that comparing airports in the 48 states to overseas operations to Maui or Honolulu is ridiculous. Distance makes the cost appear to go down. It's similar to unemployment claims increasing yet unemployment rate actually "falling" because the chronically unemployed fell out of the numerator and the fraction got smaller. But math and economics are not apparently journalistic requirement anymore.

One positive about Cincinnati is that the place is empty all the time. The management is relatively new there, so maybe they will turn it around. But for years it was managed poorly, and the chickens have come home to roost in recent times. There was an over-reliance on Delta that left activity completely hollowed out when Delta yanked hub status. We needed Delta but we never made Delta need us. Delta was the rich guy divorcing his aging wife, and Cincinnati couldn't sue for alimony.

Fly in and out of Dayton if you can. Other than 30 miles of driving, there's no compelling reason to fly into CVG. I'd love to see CVG close and an airport open on the Ohio side of the river, but I realize airports don't just open and close like McDonalds. I can dream, though.

Cincinnati has a municipal airport but if you can't charter a flight, you're out of luck there.

Even though Honolulu and Maui rank near the top in terms of fare prices, their price per mile is among the lowest. There is a reason for that: along with San Juan PR, the flights are long distance trips. After the airlines have recouped all their costs, it doesn't really matter much how much longer you fly, within the bounds of endurance.

As this article suggests, airlines generally treat passengers who book travel "late" almost like criminals. They need to find a way to embrace this type of traveler, because there is a great demand in the market to make it more easy and cheaper to purchase tickets closer to the date of travel.

Good point Paul, cost per mile is worthless since tickets aren't priced or bought that way.You would think that major airlines would encourage people living in their hub cities to fly, but consistently flights originating in Atlanta, Houston, and Denver are among the most expensive.

Cost per mile isn't a very useful metric because airlines don't price flights according to distance. If they did, SEA-MCO (to pick one example) would regularly cost more than SFO-MSY… but it doesn't. The DoT data for average fares (available from http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/airfares) tell a very different story, whether you look at the data for average airfare (yay Huntsville, where I live) or for airfare ranked by number of O/D passengers.

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